ICAO to consider preliminary report on Ryanair incident on 25 October

<p> MINSK, Sep 30 - PrimePress. A preliminary report on the Ryanair incident in Minsk will be announced at the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal on 25 October, according to Artyom Sikorski, Director of the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus, Prime news agency reports. </p> <p>   </p> <p> “The preliminary report on the Ryanair incident in Minsk will be presented at the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal on 25 October... We expect to participate in the meeting in person. Before that meetings were held online. All participants will be at the ICAO headquarters in Montreal, now we are deciding who will be included in our delegation,” Sputnik agency quotes Sikorsky as saying. </p> <p>   </p> <p> Earlier the Department of Aviation of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus informed that the ICAO had informed Minsk about postponing the preliminary report on the Ryanair incident from September till October, however a specific date was not given. </p> <p>   </p> <p> According to the director of the department, the ICAO Council meeting was held on 13 September to consider the Belarusian issue; four countries - Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Ireland - were involved as guests. According to Sikorski, the meeting started at 9.30pm Minsk time and at 1.30am the council said it could not continue for technical reasons. </p> <p>   </p> <p> “At the meeting on September 13th we brought up two issues: the first one was to consider the interim report on the decision of the ICAO Council, and the second issue was about the illegality of the air sanctions imposed on Belarus. We also asked the ICAO to investigate and take appropriate action against countries that had adopted these restrictive measures. However, none of these issues were considered and the meeting was postponed to 25 October,” said Sikorski. </p> <p>   </p> <p> ICAO will share the draft of the final report with the Belarusian aviation department in October-November this year. </p> <p>   </p> <p> According to Sikorski, ICAO conducted an aviation security audit at Belarus’ Department of Aviation in 2017, “it was found to be 100 percent compliant with all international standards, in particular the response to facts of illegal interference.” “There are few countries that can boast of this. So we have a question for ICAO: do you question the results of your audit?” Sikorski said. Similar audits on aviation security and flight safety are conducted every five years. </p> <p>   </p> <p> On May 23, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight that took off from Athens was forced to make an emergency landing in the Belarusian capital of Minsk after a reported bomb threat. A Mikoyan MiG-29 jet was scrambled to escort the plane into Minsk. The bomb threat came up empty after the aircraft had landed. The Belarusian authorities specified later that Roman Protasevich, wanted in Belarus as a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, which the Belarusian authorities recognized as extremist, had been among the flight’s passengers. He was detained by Belarusian law enforcement agents. Following the incident, the European Union barred Belarusian air companies from operating flights to EU airports and using the European Union’s airspace, and recommended that European air carriers should avoid Belarusian airspace. End </p> <p>   </p>

2021-10-01

Primepress